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It's unlikely Chris Christie will get this much attention again. Or have such sway over a mesmerized crowd.

In the future, he'll probably turn up on late-night chat shows, all blather and amiability. Some Jimmy, be it Kimmel or Fallon, will josh around about that time he allegedly caused a huge traffic jam as a screw-you to some political opponent or other. It's inconceivable that Christie would want to josh about that time at the Republican Convention when he incited an angry, frothing throng that was chanting, "Lock her up! Lock her up!"

It was a lurid, livid TV moment. And utterly unnerving. It's best forgotten, but the images are hard to erase. The point of Christie's speech was to "prosecute" Hillary Clinton for her alleged crimes. The braying mob was in favour of a witch-burning scenario. One understood instantly how a tin-pot rabble rouser in the town square could incite a mob to ransack homes and burn people at the stake.

On CNN, there was some tut-tutting about the "Lock her up!" chants. Someone on the vast panels that seem mandatory during coverage of this Republican Convention pointed out that, you know, next week during the Democratic Convention, they're going to "hammer" Donald Trump. That lame assertion seemed to close the matter.

Besides, the braying mob was there to enjoy the moment when Donald Trump went from "presumptive" to actual Republican candidate. And to enjoy some more speeches from members of the Trump clan. The "Lock her up!" mob doesn't particularly care about the originality of such speeches, one suspected, no matter what the media says.

The night's official theme was "Make America Work Again." Every now and then somebody on CNN or Fox News would mention that. The viewers could only roll their eyes. There wasn't much about creating jobs and getting people working.

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There was no coherence to the night, to the theme. Unless the idea was that a whole lot of people could find jobs locking up "her" or whoever was next up for indictment by fiery speech.

Mind you, locking up Lucifer has always proved a problem, as he's been hard to catch since time immemorial and, according to Dr. Ben Carson's speech, Hillary Clinton is Lucifer in a pantsuit, or something. It sounded like Carson was going to call on the Ghostbusters crew – presumably the female version, since this Lucifer is a woman – but he failed to make the call.

The only coherence to the night was the incoherence of angry feelings, fear of Lucifer, the delight in the possibility of locking people up, and the even more incoherent feelings brought on by worship of the Trump family, every Jack and Jane among them.

Watching events of these past few days unfold on TV, a person is struck by the total lack of adherence to any plan for selling Trump and his ideas to the American people. It's simply a series of chaotic moments, barbs thrown around and wildly egotistical assertions. There's no playbook. And that was clear last Sunday when Trump and Mike Pence appeared together on 60 Minutes.

It was the most surreal 60 Minutes since Andy Rooney did one of his incessant rants about the amount of coffee in a can of coffee. While Lesley Stahl was unfussy and direct in her questions, Trump seemed to take the view that every question was an interruption of his private thoughts.

"Excuse me, excuse me," he snapped many times, as if he was being rudely interrupted. Which he wasn't. "I'm more humble than you can understand," he declared at one point, defeating his assertion of humility with his own assertion.

Mike Pence had the air of a bullied man who had agreed to sit beside Trump and nod, in return for being left alone. One half-expected Trump to put Pence on his lap and declare, "See this vice-presidential candidate I picked up? He says great, great things about me. Don't ya, Mikey?"

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The lack of adherence to a Republican platform means that TV coverage of the entire convention turns into a hunt for clues about what this Republican might do in office. The pundits and panelists are doing the same thing – looking for clues.

That's why the speech by Donald Trump Jr. was greeted with enormous relief across the networks. The guy said some stuff about jobs, and putting people to work. Mind you, the jobs on the horizon seem to consist entirely of construction work building Trump businesses in and around New York. But there's coherence to that. In fact, Trump Jr. spoke as a candidate with greater flair and cohesion than his father ever has.

He attempted to alleviate the idea that the Trump kids are stinking-rich brats. He talked about getting his hands dirty in construction and knowing real, hard-working people and respecting them. Implausible, mind you, but it was an effort. Amazingly, he even acknowledged Republican policy on education and vouchers.

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Such was the impact that CNN's Wolf Blitzer, bless him, breathlessly and with relief declared it "the most powerful speech so far at this convention." It wasn't.

That honour goes to Christie's unnerving inciting of the "Lock her up!" mob. And the runner-up was Ben Carson's Lucifer speech. The latter being something people would pay to see again. At a casino or such. And the entire convention, so far, has all the coherence of a wild night at a third-rate casino.

But what happens there will stay there – it will have no impact on potential Trump voters, or the curious, anywhere.

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